Chinese Geographical Science 2006 16(4) 359–364 DOI 10.1007/s11769-006-0359-9 www.springerlink.com

Urbanization of Province and Its Spatial Pattern

WANG Bo1, GUO Qinghai1, Dou Sen2 (1.College of Information and Technology, Jilin Agricultural University, 130118, ; 2. College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130118, China)

Abstract: Urbanization is a crucial criterion of assessing a nation’s or a particular region’s level of modernization. It has been accelerated all over the world in the 21th century. The main purpose of this research is to provide a strategy of spatial pattern of urbanization for rural areas in Jilin Province based on the reality of economic development in Jilin and the im- balance of natural resources distribution. The strategy divides the nine central cities of Jilin Province into three economic circles. The outer economic circle, open circle, includes Yanbian, , and , covering the eastern and western parts of Jilin Province. The middle one includes Jilin, , Siping and . The inner one, centring as Changchun, includes , Yitong, Nong’an, Jiutai and . It needs to centre as Changchun which has the good foundation of economic development and more economic increase, then by economic effect extending out gradually, other areas develop subsequently. To construct Jilin as a green ecological province, cultivation in the outer circle should be con- trolled, with the main aim to recover grassland. Large population should be moved to other places by developing labor economy. From economy and ecology, to decrease the load of the land can reduce the loss of the resources and benefit the balance of ecology. Subsequently, the whole province’s economy will be developed sustainably. Keywords: urbanization; economic circles; spatial pattern; Jilin Province

1 Introduction and the change of employment structure (Lampard, 1964; Davis, 1965). During the past 20 years, there were nu- It is indisputable that the urbanization has been consid- merous researches about Chinese urbanization, and the ered as an important indicator for evaluating a nation’s or social issues during the development of urbanization a region’s modernization and industrialization. Therefore, have been studied by the academies in economy, soci- the issue of urbanization will arouse wide and remarkable ology and other relevant domains. The urbanization concern in both domestic and international geography in would be crucial to realize the countryside modernization, the 21st century. From a comprehensive survey of the and the bottom-up model of urbanization will gradually development of urbanization all over the world, some become the fundamental force for urbanization in China successful modes of urbanization, such as the American (Liu, 2000; Gu and Li, 2000). Urbanization in China mode and the Japanese mode, and Chinese should avoid intervening by the government and start the mode and Southern Jiangsu mode can be found. These countryside market (Ji and Hu, 2001; Li, 2000). At the modes have boosted the global economy. Since there are same time, it is considered that urbanization will bring some differences among the countries and the regions, about environmental problem (Che and Shang, 2004). the mode of urbanization chosen should be different. The Therefore, some reserches suggested that scale of city researches about urbanization all over the world suggest should be emphasized in the process of urbanization that urbanization is a process—a natural historic process (Cui, 1995; Liu, 1998; Fei, 1996; Wang et al., 2000). from the traditional agricultural society to the modern Otherwise it is believed that China should take a com- urban society. It manifests the clustering of population, prehensive and simultaneous manner of developing small, the increasing of city quantity, the broadening of city middle and big cites, and the tertiary industry may take scale and the advancing of modernization. The urbani- an important effect in the urban development (Liao, zation always links with the development of economy 1996; 2001). To summarize the above major literatures, Received date: 2006-03-03; accepted date: 2006-10-20 Foundation item: Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40271069, No. 4041076) Biography: WANG Bo (1973–), female, a native of Songyuan of Jilin Province, Ph.D. candidate, specialized in quantitative economy. E-mail: [email protected] Correspondent: GUO Qinghai. E-mail: [email protected]

360 WANG Bo, GUO Qinghai different urbanization strategies have different merits. It ference is mainly due to the imbalance of natural re- is hard to make a judgement on which strategy is the best sources and social-economic development (Table 1). for a particular nation or region in general. But for one thing, we can say that decision on this issue should be Table 1 Population distribution in Jilin Province in 2000 based on domestic natural resources, the level of indus- Region Proportion of Proportion of Density of popula- 2 trialization, the development of agriculture, the tertiary area (%) population (%) tion (person/km ) industry’s development, etc. Eastern area 39.9 21.9 76 From the China Fifth Census, the rate of urbanization Middle area 35.5 60.1 233 of China in 2000 was 36.09%, which slightly increased to Western area 24.6 18.0 101 Notes: Eastern area includes Tonghua, Baishan, and Yanbian; Middle 37.7% in 2001. Similarly, there were around 1.0% in- area includes Changchun, Jilin, Siping and Liaoyuan; Western area creases during the each of the following years, such as includes Songyuan and Baicheng 2002 (39.1%), 2003 (40%), and 2004 (41%). For Jilin Sources: Statistical Bureau of Jilin Province, 2001; Bai, 2000

Province, the rate of urbanization was slightly above the From the natural resources perspective, the natural average of the whole country, i.e. 43.5% in 2000, 43.8% in resources in middle area are richer and more diverse than 2001, 44.5% in 2002 and 45% in 2003. Although these other areas, which can be used to traditional farming, figures may represent some advancement in urbanization forest and stockbreeding (Table 2). About 83.3% of total of Jilin, the comprehensive economic strength and indi- middle area can be utilized to develop above three in- vidual dispensable income on average are still very low. dustries, of which farmland is slightly above half (54.1%) The development of urbanization has not been played a of the total utilizable land. However, for eastern area, the crucial role as a major impulse for economy development. land is only able to be used for traditional farming and Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the spatial distri- forest, especially, 68.8% can be used for forest. In the bution of urbanization. However, if analyzing a bit, we can western area of Jilin, the land is only able to be used for find there are so many differences in accumulating ways of farming and stockbreeding, with an area of 45.8%. It capital, the background of policy resources, etc., between needs noting that 8% of the total land in western region Jilin Province and the developed provinces along the sea can be used for stockbreeding. Comparing with the in the Southeast China. So what Jilin Province should do is middle and eastern areas, the proportion of land for to learn their successful experiences. Only when the mode stockbreeding is relative high, so the western area can be of urbanization is suitable for its own situation can it speed developed to be a stockbreeding centre. up the economic development of Jilin Province. From above, we can see that there are large amount of

farmland and densely population in the middle area of 2 Imbalance of Development in Jilin Province Jilin Province, which should develop cities in order to

strengthen the convergent effect and the radiating effect. 2.1 Natural resources But to the western area, pasture is abundant, so it should The population of Jilin Province is distributed unevenly. develop stockbreeding industry. Forestland is more than The disparity of population distribution in Jilin Province others in the eastern area where forest should be mainly is great. In order to make clear comparison, this article developed. The development of cities in the western and divides Jilin as three main parts: eastern area, middle area, eastern area should be driven by the cities of the middle and western area. From the ratio of population to farm- area. Only in this way, can we ensure the sustainable land, the density of population in the middle area is three development and the ecological balance of Jilin Province. times more than the eastern area. Such a great dif-

Table 2 Land use distribution in Jilin Province

Farmland Forestland Pasture Region Area (km2) Area (km2) Proportion (%) Area (km2) Proportion (%) Area (km2) Proportion (%)

Eastern area 76.29419 1141.40 14.6 52515.75 68.8 0 0

Middle area 67.84393 36679.28 54.1 19520.92 28.8 262.26 0.4

Western area 46.89738 17711.84 37.8 0 0 3753.90 8.0

Sources: Statistical Bureau of Jilin Province, 2001; Bai, 2000

Urbanization of Jilin Province and Its Spatial Pattern 361

2.2 Economic development (Table 3), the nine sub-regions can be listed as following: Since China adopted an opening policy and has been in Changchun is the first, followed by Jilin, Siping, Yanbian, marketing economy, the economy of Jilin Province has Tonghua, Songyuan, Baicheng, Baishan, and Liaoyuan in been dramatically developed in the past 20 years. In 2004, 1994. However, this order significantly changed during GDP per capita increased to 10,932 yuan (RMB), which the past 10 years. For example, Songyuan skipped to the was 24.6 times as that in 1980. Meanwhile, GDP per third position in 2004 from the sixth position in 1994. capita in Yanbian increased slower than the average, Yanbian was dropped down to the sixth position from the which was 554 yuan in 1980 and 8920 yuan in 2004, fourth position. The gap of total amount of GDP be- increasing 15.1 times. In addition, with the rapid devel- tween those nine sub-regions has been great dramatically, opment of economy, the gap between Yanbian and the and the absolute gap of GDP can be found, which means other areas in Jilin will be extended in further. the minus of the biggest GDP per capita and the smallest There are a number of approaches that can be used to one in a certain year. Absolute gap of GDP in 1994 was compare the differences between different regional about 28.96×109 yuan; however, this figure was in- economic power (Li, 2003). Among those approaches, creased to 143.49×109 yuan in 2004. Therefore, we can regional GDP indicates the overall economic power in a see that the imbalance of economy development be- region. Jilin Province includes nine sub-regions. Ac- tween different sub-regions in Jilin Province is quite cording to the statistics about regional GDP in 1994 significant (Table 3).

Table 3 GDP increase in sub-region of Jilin Province (×109 yuan (RMB))

Region 1994 1998 2000 2002 2004 Changchun 32.61840 60.90527 86.09987 113.91802 153.50051 Jilin 17.88085 33.07965 40.12862 50.50813 70.37040 Songyuan 7.55284 13.59904 15.57777 19.52528 28.47227 Siping 10.11172 15.78395 15.66265 19.99885 27.75452 Tonghua 8.06169 12.32150 14.22690 17.41323 21.78000 Yanbian 8.55813 11.46045 12.73557 15.49657 19.42030 Baicheng 4.85523 5.87551 7.32589 10.20181 13.70006 Baishan 4.50649 7.38504 8.50100 10.03247 12.86348 Liaoyuan 3.65455 5.57866 6.71146 6.97070 10.00579 Source: Statistical Bureau of Jilin Province, 2005

The effect of imbalance also has been showed up in Table 4 GDP per capita in sub-region of growth of GDP per capita in different regions (Table 4). Jilin Province (yuan (RMB)) In 1994, GDP per capita of Changchun was the most, that Region 1994 1998 2000 2002 2004 in Yanbian was in the third position, that of Songyuan was in the eighth position, and Baicheng got lowest one Changchun 4961 8671 12306 15988 21199 among those nine sub-regions. The absolute gap between Jilin 4246 7736 9296 11717 16401 GDP per capita for different regions was 2447.26 yuan. Songyuan 3002 5058 5695 7031 10140 After 10-year economic development, Changchun is still Baishan 3530 5609 6387 7544 9845 in the first position, Songyuan raised to the third position, Tonghua 3638 5455 6336 7711 9621 but Yanbian got down to the sixth position from the third Yanbian 3972 5246 5830 7083 8920 position. Baicheng was still the area with the lowest GDP Siping 3303 4920 4851 6133 8470 per capita. The absolute gap between GDP per capita of Liaoyuan 3013 4476 5400 5611 8070 Jilin Province was significantly increased from 2447.26 Baicheng 2514 2960 3678 5095 6796 yuan to 14,403.43 yuan. Source: Statistical Bureau of Jilin Province, 2005 From above, we can conclude that the economic de- velopment of Jilin Province is characterized by regional the past 10 years. However, at the same time, some of imbalance. Some of the sub-regions such as Changchun sub-regions such as Yanbian showed the economy re- and Songyuan have been developed rapidly during cession. Moreover, the absolute gap of GDP per capita of

362 WANG Bo, GUO Qinghai Jilin Province has been extended more and more. Ac- 3.2 Development of three “Economic Circles” cording to the theory of imbalance development for re- 3.2.1 Inner economic circle gional economy, which claims that developed region Start with developing Changchun firstly, which is the should be given more attention and privilege, we can application of the flawed development strategy on regional conclude that a flawed development strategy on regional disparity in practice (Lin et al., 2006). Recently, the disparity is feasible for Jilin Province. economy in Changchun has been increased significantly, and the overall competitive strength also has been con- 3 Spatial Distribution of Urbanization solidated robustly. The GDP in 2004 was 153.5×109 yuan (Table 3), which, almost half of the whole Jilin Province, According to the analysis of natural resources and char- was increased by 13.5% from the year of 2003. In the acteristics of economic development in Jilin, it is neither same year, the added value for the primary industry was appropriate to copy Southern Jiangsu model and Wen- 16.8×109 yuan, which increased by 8.0% than that of zhou model, which mainly emphasize on the small cities 2003. The added value for the secondary industry was development, nor wise to purely develop the large- and 74.2×109 yuan, which increased by 15.5%, that of the middle-cities. The urbanization of Jilin Province should tertiary industry was 2.5×109 yuan, which increased by be regional (Li et al., 1995). Due to the shortage of capital 13.0%. The proportions of the primary, secondary and investment and imbalance of regional development, Jilin tertiary industries were 11%, 48.3% and 40.7%, respec- Province can only use the strategy of centring Changchun tively. GDP per capita was 21,199 yuan, which was also as development pole to drive the urbanization in the increased by 12.6% compared to that in 2003. It is whole province. qualified for the priority of development as a central city. Additionally, two-thirds of dominate industries of Jilin 3.1 Division of three “Economic Circles” Province are in Changchun, which are car manufacturing According to the spatial distribution of urbanization of and farming products’ processing. And farming products’ Jilin Province, nine sub-regions can be divided into three processing industry is a new supporting industry. This “Economic Circles” (Fig. 1). The outer economic circle industry has a large developmental potential. Comparing includes four regions: Yanbian, Baishan, Tonghua, and with other industries in Jilin Province, the profitability of Baicheng. This is an open circle, which covers the east- this industry is superior. Moreover, it needs noting that ern and western Jilin Province. The middle one includes Changchun also has the richest food supplies. The grain Jilin, Liaoyuan, Siping, and Songyuan. The inner one is provision per capita was 1106kg in 2004, of which the comprised of Changchun, which covers Gongzhuling, corn product provision per capita was 835kg, and it was Yitong, Nong’an, Jiutai, and Dehui. It is impossible to identical with the developed countries. In the future, develop three circles simultaneously due to the shortage “Corn Economy” of Jilin Province will mainly rely on of capital investment, and it is more realistic to first de- Changchun. There is a high possibility for Changchun to velop the region with good foundation such as Chang- become a centre for agriculture production industry and chun, and then extend the positive effects into the sur- farming products processing industry. Usually, the rounding areas gradually. stockbreeding products are characterised as high return with low investments and attractive to the more labours, which allows the city to achieve a great economic de- velopment with a relative low capital investment and employ more labours in countryside areas. Also it can make a great contribution to the urbanization process. On the other hand, from the perspective of developing the whole economy of the Jilin Province, multiple devel- opmental effects on the inner economic circle, even on the whole province, are expected to be achieved through the prior development in Changchun: 1) to stimulate economic increase for whole province; 2) to shorten the gap of economy between Changchun and other devel- oped regions in China; 3) to drive the middle circle Fig. 1 Three “Economic Circles” in Jilin Province economic development; 4) to attract more human re-

Urbanization of Jilin Province and Its Spatial Pattern 363 sources from eastern and western Jilin Province, in order and ecology, once the average load of land per person is to alleviate the pressure on land and population overload reduced, the seriousness of damage for natural resources for these areas, which will facilitate the ecological en- will be alleviated. And eventually, this will contribute to vironment, improve the living standard for the unem- the balance of ecology. Some of the middle cities can be ployed groups and increase the amount of resources per developed as the secondary regional development centres capita, as a result, the income level for rural population with the population of 20,000–50,000 or 10,000–20,000, will be increased. so that economy of the whole province can be stimulated 3.2.2 Middle economic circle and the central cities’ positive influence function can be After the prior development of Changchun, Jilin Prov- fully utilized under the unique ecological conditions and ince should construct regional economic centre cities, finally to achieve the harmony between human beings which have positive influence on their surroundings. The and nature. economic development of Jilin Province has been show- ing more and more imbalance, and this imbalance will be 4 Conclusions more and more intensive. Therefore, Jilin Province has to develop a number of central cities in the middle circle, According to the distribution characteristics of natural such as Jilin, Liaoyuan, Siping and Songyuan. Then the resources and imbalance of economic development in tasks can be done, emphasizing on these central cities, to Jilin Province, the urbanization process needs to be reinforce the public infrastructure construction, to extend conceived from a whole perspective of economic de- the city scale properly, and to improve cities’ positive velopment. The nine sub-regions of Jilin Province can be influence on surroundings, eventually, to develop and divided into three economic circles. From the perspective nurture two or three big cities with a population of of developing the whole economy of the Jilin Province, 500,000–1,000,000. Instead of comprehensively devel- multiple developmental effects on the inner economic oping small and middle cities, Jilin Province needs to circle, even on the whole province, are expected to be develop a few particular middle or small cities. Based on achieved through the prior development in Changchun: 1) the functions and locations, middle and small city groups to stimulate economic increase for whole province; 2) to need to be constructed among the small cities which have shorten the gap of economy between Changchun and local dominate industries and the well public infrastruc- other developed regions in China; 3) to drive the middle ture. There are also other activities in the process of ur- circle economic development; 4) to attract more human banization, such as attracting more capitals, encouraging resources from the eastern and western Jilin Province, in all parts of the society to involve the urbanization process, order to alleviate the pressure on land and population improving the city communication infrastructure, im- overload for these areas, which will facilitate the eco- proving water-supply system, power-supply system and logical environment, improve the living standard for the living conditions, and improving the population aggre- unemployed groups and increase the amount of resources gation, production attraction and distribution and com- per capita, as a result, the income level for rural popula- prehensive service. tion will be increased. In the middle circle, the four 3.2.3 Outer economic circle sub-regions of Jilin Province, including Jilin, Siping, The four sub-regions of the outer economic circle are Songyuan and Liaoyuan, will be constructed as local abundant in forestland and pasture. So the forestry and economic centre cities, which have positive influence on the stock-raising should be the main industries in the their surroundings. In the outer circle, the forest and the outer economic circle. To create the image of “a green stockbreeding should be the main industries. Meanwhile, ecological province”, and to maintain and utilize the the whole process of urbanization needs developing in function of ecological administration, the industrial de- both quantity and quality, so as to turn the urbanization to velopment of the eastern and western Jilin Province a real driving forces for Jilin Province’s economic de- should be limited to some extent. Especially, in the velopment. western Jilin Province, it is more urgent to reduce the stock-carrying capacity per hectare, so that the ecological References balance can be maintained in a reasonable level. In order to achieve this goal, it is feasible to migrate some popu- Bai Xiaoming, 2000. Ecological Environment and Studies of Es- lation to other regions. According to the law of economy tablishment of Ecological Province. Changchun: Jilin Univer-

364 WANG Bo, GUO Qinghai

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